1. Warm up: Be sure to include today’s date in Cuneiform!

2. Ancient History and Civilizations
In the next several units we are going to study the history of the first civilizations. Some of these civilizations coexisted, or were around at the same time as one another; however, there are other ancient civilizations that existed at different times.

3. Civilizations
Early man did not live in civilizations. They lived in villages or communities.
So what is a civilization?

4. Civilizations consist of:
Cities
Organized governments
Art
Religion
Class divisions
Writing systems

5. Civilizations started around rivers. Why?
Good farming conditions
Provided fish and freshwater
Easy to travel
Easy to trade (way
goods and ideas
moved from place
to place)

7. Mesopotamian Civilization
Chapter 1 – Section 2

8. Lesson Standards:
Explain the role of agriculture in early settled communities.
Recognize the immediate and long term impacts and influences of early agricultural communities such as Southwest Asia and the African Nile Valley.
Understand the place of historical events in the context of past, present and future.
Explain how different early human communities expressed their beliefs.
Recognize major historical time periods (i.e., Early Civilizations .
Recognize the basic components of culture (i.e., language, common values, traditions, government, art, literature, lifestyles).
Recognize the steps that give rise to complex governmental organizations (city, city-states, and states).

9. Focusing on the Main Ideas
Mesopotamian Civilization
Focusing on the Main Ideas
Civilization in Mesopotamia began in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Sumerians invented writing and made other important contributions to later peoples.
Sumerian city-states lost power when they were conquered by outsiders.

10. Civilization in Mesopotamia began in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Civilizations first began as villages.
The villages gradually grew into complex societies.

11. Earliest civilization started in area between Tigris River and Euphrates River.
This area called Mesopotamia (“land between the rivers”)
Mesopotamia located in the Fertile Crescent.
Fertile Crescent was a curved strip of land that extended from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. The rivers in the area often flooded in the spring leaving behind rich soil for farming.

13. Flooding
Floods in Mesopotamia were frequent and unpredictable. Farmers learned to control the rivers with dams and channels. They also used the rivers to irrigate, or water, their crops.

14. Armies - defend themselves Building projects
As cities formed, the people needed plans and decisions made for the city. This led to governments being formed.
Laws - keep order
Armies - defend themselves
Building projects

15. During this time humans worried less about basic needs.
Shelter Food Clothing
People could do other things.
develop religions
develop arts
invent ways of writing
create calendars

16. Farmers built Dams --- to control floods Channels --- Walls *****
Waterways ***** to water crops
(irrigation)
Ditches *****

17. Irrigation 1.plenty of food
Cause Effect
Irrigation 1.plenty of food
2. support large population

18. Sumer Region in southern Mesopotamia that had many cities.
Each city was a city-state (had their own government and not part of any larger government.

19. Sumerian cities often fought each other
Sumerian cities often fought each other. To protect themselves, the city-states built walls around themselves.

20. Cause Effect City-states were separated by deserts and mud flats
no travel or communication between each city-state
City-states fought each
other for (glory and territory)
built walls around city

21. Ziggurat
Sumerians believed in many gods (polytheistic) and thought their gods had power over nature and human activity.
They wanted to please the gods.
They built ziggurats (grand temple) in the center of each city for their chief god.

22. Ziggurat It was built like a wedding cake.
On top was a special place of worship.
Only priest or priestesses could enter.

23. Government Priests may have been the first to rule.
Kings later ran the government.

24. People in Sumer Kings Farmers
Artisans (skilled workers that made metal products, cloth, and pottery)
Merchants and traders (traveled to other cities and traded tools, wheat, barley for copper, tin, timber.

25. Social Classes Upper class- King, priests, government officials
Middle class- artisans, merchants, farmers, fishers (largest group)
Lower class- slaves (worked on farms or in temples) Slaves may have been prisoners of war or owed debts.

26. Roles of Society Men – head of household - school
Women – had rights, could buy and sell property and run businesses.

27. Cradle of Civilization
Sumerians’ ideas and inventions were copied and improved upon by other peoples.
They left a lasting mark on world history.

28. Cuneiform Greatest invention of Sumerians Type of writing
Helped keep records of business and events
Passed on their ideas to others
Made up of wedge-shaped marks cut in damp clay tablets with sharp reeds.
Only males could learn to write and became scribes.
At first they used pictures to tell a story (pictograph)
Each picture evolved into a symbol for a word.

31. Literature
Epic of Gilgamesh :world’s oldest known story (epic- long poem that tells the story of a hero)
Gilgamesh is a king who travels around the world with a friend performing great deeds. His friend dies, and Gilgamesh tries to find a way to live forever. He learns this is only possible for the gods.

32. Innovations of Sumerians
Cuneiform
Irrigation systems
Wagon wheel
Plow
Sailboat
Number system based on 60 (60-minute hour, 60-second minute, and 360-degree circle)
12-month calendar based on cycles of the moon.
Mud bricks

33. Outsiders
King Sargon B.C. conquered all of Mesopotamia when city-states of Sumer fought among themselves.
King Sargon was king of the Akkadians from northern Mesopotamia.
He set up the world’s first empire (group of many different lands under one ruler.)
Empire lasted for about 200 years.

34. Hammurabi
King Hammurabi – 1800s B.C. built the city of Babylon on the Euphrates River.
He united the cities of Mesopotamia under one rule and created the Babylonian Empire.

35. Hammurabi’s Code
He created a law code, or collection of laws. He took what he believed were the best laws from each city-state and put them in one code.
His code influenced and was a model for other civilizations.
Laws covered crimes, farming,
business activities, marriage, and
family.

36. Assignment
Each student will write a secret message to trade with another student.
Your partner will have to decipher without help.